Engineering colleges and universities from Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Rajasthan have been writing to the All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) over the last year, requesting the body not to approve new engineering institutions in their States, owing to a severe slump in demand.

AICTE had decreased the cut off percentage for admissions to engineering faculty last December, in order to fill large number of vacant seats in engineering colleges across many states. However, top authorities in most of the universities believe that while this may increase the intake, they honestly fear about the quality, since there is also need to improve the quality of the teachers. Engineering is not merely a degree but much more. The professors themselves lack in the employability factor and no expectation can be made from such professors to make their students employable, they opine.

India is now home to 3,393 engineering colleges that have 14.85 lakh seats available. Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh have about 70 per cent of engineering and technical institutes. When admissions closed last year, the AICTE estimated that nearly two lakh seats went unfilled.

This hole in engineering admission has academicians worried. This year, the AICTE has relaxed entry norms for tech schools, hoping for increased demand. However, despite lowering the minimum qualifying score, doubts still persist on whether all seats will be occupied.

This situation has boiled down to a toss-up between the quantity of engineers and their quality. While the AICTE declined to comment, the next three years will determine whether our universities churn out quality or quantity.